Separating illusion
from reality doesn’t usually happen all at once. What we experience as
reality changes in different stages of consciousness. For those who
decide to renounce the world completely, it’s possible to leap directly
toward the goal. But even then there is no guarantee that perception
has actually shifted.
A person may enter a monastery because the Church deems that a holy
life. But if old perceptions get dragged through the door, the
monastery holds the same traps as the material world: Ego.
Jesus wanted his disciples to come into union with God. Any other
life was steeped in illusion. Ego keeps that illusion strong because
“I, me, and mine” is so rooted in worldly affairs. The most worthwhile
life is spent discovering your spiritual core and building your
existence on it. If you do that, you will be first in the eyes of God
even if you are last in the eyes of the world.
If you can perceive the light within, you will gain its fullness.
But if you are blind to it, you will have none. The reality you find
yourself in depends on you. The light is God’s reality, the dark is the
absence of God.
Jesus wanted to share the unity he experienced with God, and
therefore he often used the phrase abide in me. The parable of the
grapevine elaborates on the point. Jesus declares that being cut off
from God is sterile and fruitless. The sap that nourishes the vine and
causes it to bear fruit is God, the source of life. By implication, the
only life that escapes death is one that connects back to its ultimate
source.
Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).